Typographie: Schrift und Graphik mit Letraset was an exhibition that ran in Darmstadt, München, and Zürich in 1978–79. This 8×8-inch 72-page catalog was designed by Christof Gassner and features his own work along with dozens of other designers who used Letraset.

Image: Letterform Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Design: Christof Gassner

Image: Letterform Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Design: Helmut Langer

Image: Letterform Archive. License: All Rights Reserved.

Design: Christof Gassner. Promotional material for Deutsche Letraset. The last image was used for the cover of LetraTime.

Design: Christof Gassner. German translation of a quote by Henri Michaux: “Qui s’est abaissé devant une fourmi, n’a plus à s’abaisser devant un lion.” – “Those who have bowed to an ant do not have to bow down before a lion.”

Their signage is inconsistent, both within different stores and within any one store, depending on the skill of the artist doing it. Doesn't bother me … makes it fun to go to different stores and see how good, bad, or mediocre it is.

Many Trader Joe’s Sign Artists are competent craftspeople, but they aren’t always trained as sign painters. They come from various backrounds, like fine art, illustration, or graffiti. Most eschew traditional sign painting methods, such as perfecting a personal style informed by historical lettering models, expediency, and the practicalities of brush strokes. Instead, they sometimes base their letterforms on digital fonts, drawing the letters with a paint marker.

It took me quite a while to realize this sign was painted — not printed, or cut from vinyl. Staring closely at the sign for a long time earned me plenty of quizzical looks from fellow shoppers.

This sign is one such case, in which the artist rendered the faceted and chromatic Detroit, by type designer Alex Sheldon. The font is so well replicated, in fact, that it's difficult to tell it was drawn/painted by hand — which works against the main point of Trader Joe's homespun, anti-corporate identity. Of course, most customers wouldn’t know Detroit as a font, but the perfection of these letters belies the sign’s handmade reality. (The wordspace before the exclamation mark is also an interesting choice.) All that said, I can tell you from first-hand experience: this particular sign really pops!

Detroit, by the way, is one of the first subjects of the newly launched Font Review Journal. Bethany Heck emphasizes the typeface’s roots in handmade signs and the “gaspipe” lettering style which was prevelant in signs and posters of the 1930–50s. She shows that this isn’t the first time the typeface has been used as a model for sign painting: Danny Jones spec’d it in his design for a coffee shop on the Facebook campus, and employed San Francisco’s New Bohemia Signs, to then paint it by hand.

Signs for a Philz Coffee shop on the Facebook campus in Palo Alto, 2013.

These uses raise questions about the craft of sign painting in contemporary design. Does it make sense to paint something by hand if the shapes are so directly tied to digital typography? Is the charm of hand-painted letters in the forms themselves or simply the physical material?

The captions use Prismaset’s initial Solid style, including some of its the lowercase. “Making a ‘black’ weight from a design intended to be multi-lined led to a pleasantly odd set of characters, some geometric and some with their own off-kilter shapes, looking simultaneously Art Deco, Gothic and Bauhaus.” — Lineto

Indigo was drawn by André Chante (alias Andy Song) for Hollenstein Phototypo, Paris. This cover for German graphic design magazine Novum was designed by Chante himself.

The top line shows Indigo with a rainbow fill, as also seen on a German pharmacy sign. The cover of Hollenstein’s specimen Fantaisies Exclusivités (1972) features more variants with different fill patterns, including the open/outlined Indigo Éclairé — and also the floral and starry patterns used here in lines 2 and 4. The clouds in the bottom line pop up again on a record cover from 1975. Makes me wonder whether the cartoon characters from line 3 really were included in the retail version of this decorated typeface series as well!

A story in which the protagonist attempts to “solve the problem of sexual harassment in the workplace by starting a temp agency that offers the services of “lightning rods”: women who provide sex on-site and therefore absorb all the destructive liability of male desire.” — NY Times

“The Type Directors Club in conjunction with Cardon Copy presents POSTERS OF FORTUNE: 20 Fortune cookies, with 20 distinct fortunes, have been sent to 20 internationally renowned designers. The designers have in turn transmuted these personal divinations into richly imagined typographical posters. See them, bid on them, come hear the designers discuss them.”